Extractive Reserve of the Lower Rio Branco-Rio Jauaperi

Xixuau Xiparina is an area of unbroken pristine rainforest. It is one of the last remaining 30% of Amazonian forest which is totally undamaged by human activity. As virgin forest, it does not require active conservation management. It simply needs to be protected. The Xixuau-Xiparina Reserve is therefore a vital and strategically importantly located piece in a larger national proposal to preserve the Amazon rainforest. In 1992 the Associacao Amazonia was founded with the objectives of preserving biological and cultural diversity and promote sustainable development in Amazonia. The first action undertaken was the establishment of a protected area in the Xixuau-Xiparina rivers in the Lower Rio Branco- Rio Jauaperì region. This was done by buyng the right of possession of the land from the local inhabitants while at the same time incorporating them into the association, so that they would have maintained the effective possession of the land. The property of land continued to be held by the Federal Government. In 2000 the project "Amazonia Landscape Mapping and Biodiversity Estimation using Indigenous Taxonomy" was presented at . This project, is founded on the equivalence, with regards to biodiversity, between modern science and traditional communities knowledge and competence, as stipulated by the Conventiion on Biodiversity. It aims to build the capacity of Extractive Reserves to extract from the forest another and potetially very remunerative product: scientific data. Since 2001 the Association has been working with IBAMA (Brazilian Environment Institute) and CNPT (National Centre for Traditional Populations) to designate the existing Xixuau-Xiparina Reserve and a larger area along the west side of the Jauperi (totalling 1 million acres) as an Extractivist Reserve. Such reserves are based on the sustainable land-use model created by the land-rights and rubber-tapping activist Chico Mendes. They guarantee to the local inhabitants the right to sustainably manage environmental resources, in order to improve their quality of life, generate income and ensure permanent rights of residency. The creation of the new enlarged Lower Rio Branco Rio Jauperi Extractivist Reserve falls within the Amazon Region Protected Areas programme of the G-7 Pilot Project for the Amazon, being financed by the World Bank. The application process for the creation of the Extractivist Reserve has been approved at every level of Brazilian Government and now simply awaits a Presidential Decree in order to come into effect. A campaign to accelerate the approval of the Extractivist Reserve is being carried-out with several local organizations, such as WWF, Grupo Trabalho Amazonia (GTA), Fundacao Vitoria Amazonica (FVA), Conselho Nacional Seringueiros (CNS), Instituto SocioAmbiental (ISA), Federaçao Trabalhadores Agricoltura (FETAG).

The present government of Roraima is planning the construction of the road BR-451 which will cut thorough the reserve and issued a decree to colonize the area of the reserve. These actions by the present government are part of its larger plan of extensive deforestation and of the expansion of the multinational agro-business of beef, soya and rice production. The communities and associations of the Rio Jauaperi have responded immediately by formally repudiating the colonization and the construction of the road. They believe that only the creation of "the Extractive Reserve of the Low River Branco and Jauaperi" by the Federal Government of Brazil will save this natural paradise, the inhabiting communities and their culture from sure destruction. For this reason local people demand the immediate creation of the Lower Rio Branco-Jauaperi Extractive reserve because professional fishing boats, ranchers, loggers and the government of Roraima with its plans for building roads and colonising the area are destroying the region.

Help saving the Amazon Rainforest

Join the petition to save the Reserve Xixuau and to create the Extractive Reserve of the Lower Rio Branco-Rio Jauaperi